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Rachel Sarah

Photographer, Videographer, and Writer.

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CategoryVegan

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By : Rachel Sarah October 1, 2015June 26, 2019

Traveling Vegan: language barriers, social pressure, and remote eateries

A little more than 14 months ago, I jetted off from England to explore, work, and live across the globe. Vegan worries plagued me, and so I packed thousands of energy bars and a lifetime supply of LUSH Cosmetics into the dilapidated rucksack that was to become my life.

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By : Rachel Sarah February 3, 2015June 26, 2019

Fifth-wheeling all the way to Malaysia on a motorbike: a recipe for getting stranded, being lost, and, ice-skating?

“You’re going to Malaysia?”
“Yes.”
“On a motorbike?”
“Yes.”

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By : Rachel Sarah December 26, 2014June 26, 2019

Hard Raw Vegan Chocolate Recipe

Your raw chocolate will taste best after 2 days (if they last that long!) as the flavours will really settle and complement each other.

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Rachel Sarah 💙
23 Feb
Rachel Sarah 💙
@rachelsarah_m

“Going out isn’t going to make me feel any better”, she says before forcing herself to go out and consequently feeling very much better 🌞 🚴🏼‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/7TQUAL38df

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Rachel Sarah 💙
23 Feb
Rachel Sarah 💙
@rachelsarah_m

“Going out isn’t going to make me feel any better”, she says before forcing herself to go out and consequently feeling very much better 🌞 🚴🏼‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/7TQUAL38df

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Follow @rachelsarah_m
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Rachel Sarah on Instagram

rachelsarahm

Freelance 🎥
She/her | vegan 🌍 | creating films, taking photos, + running around the mountains.

Rachel Sarah 🌱
When I first found out where our basecamp in the A When I first found out where our basecamp in the Andes would be, in the shadow of this mountain, I spent some time researching the area, and was determined to shoot the Milky Way and this peak, despite the fact I had (and still have) very little experience in astrophotography. And not *quite* the right lenses to pull it off. Quite often my dreams for a photo are far beyond my actual capabilities. 

So fast forward a few weeks and I’m there, with a wonderful group of people I’d been photographing for the past week, feeling such joy and looking up at the sky, seeing the Milky Way the brightest and clearest I’d ever seen it. 

But the Milky Way was in completely the wrong side of the valley. Not above the mountain. So, in between cups of rum and dancing by a fire in the cold Andean evening, I wandered off into the darkness alone and set up the camera to capture the stars, and then, after an uncomfortable frozen night’s non-sleep, I crawled out of my tent and captured the mountain as the sun rose. These two photos have been sitting in my Lightroom for over a year now, and in the early hours of the morning this week I was reminded of their existence, and decided to finally create that photo that’s always been in my head. An image I never actually saw but one that represents my time spent in the mountains that night. 

It’s really easy for me to stick to the things I am good at, to stay away from trying to create things that may be beyond my skill. So it’s nice to step out of that comfort zone and play with new ways to reflect on and capture moments.
One of my biggest flaws as a creative is moving to One of my biggest flaws as a creative is moving too quickly. To the next thing, the next idea, a new place - without sitting and reflecting and reviewing on the last. In appreciating what I created and the experience I’ve had. Obsessed with growth, being a better photographer or videographer and concentrating on past flaws rather than those little moments or work I’ve created that might actually be good. Always too hard on myself, comparing myself to those more experienced than me, those less experienced than me. It’s hard not to get caught in looking ahead, especially now.

At the moment I’m feeling incredibly gaslighted by the media, by our government, about our situation here in the UK. I’m thinking ahead but I’m also thinking behind, appreciating experiences and moments that happened in a world altogether different than the world I’m living in now. 

Sometimes it’s worth going through the archives. You might find one of your favourite ever photos.
Every time I think I’ve settled into some kind o Every time I think I’ve settled into some kind of acceptance about being at home, about missing the winter season, the hills, (the suffering!), the specific kind of creativity that comes with looking through a viewfinder at a wild landscape, I’m then thrown back out of that acceptance. Sometimes it’s by seeing somebody out who lives by the fells, sometimes by my own photos from past adventures, by other people’s throwbacks, by the outdoorsy books I read (bothy tales really, really got to me) - all these things and more remind me that acceptance isn’t a final, settled state. It’s something that comes and goes much like the waves of my moods. Extreme, changing quickly from ragey to despondent to hopeful and excitable.

This is something that my recent writing in @betamagazineclub explores, alongside the story of when and how I started winter climbing - 

“It’s moreso an acceptance that things don’t always go to plan. Much like a day in Scotland in the winter - be prepared to change your route last minute, to have a plan B, C, D. Be ready to change your mind, to back down, to know when to retreat and go home.” 

You can get a copy of Beta’s volume 3 at the link in their bio ❄️ 

📸 my second shooter on this project - @michael.fleming
I had a really weird trip into my past self today, I had a really weird trip into my past self today, something some of you have seen but many of you haven’t. The fact that I was a wildly different person doing wildly different things ten years ago. In cadets, ready to join the RAF, freshly doing my flying scholarship and a parachuting course. Painstakingly ironing creases into my uniform, being Flight Sergeant Ross and yelling at cadets in drill practice. Doing avalanche training with the RAF skiing team in the alps, running around in the dark in camoflague rugby tackling people. I didn’t grow up in an outdoorsy family or background but I definitely think that I managed some of my mental health issues doing these things in cadets. I was a horribly unhappy teen and this made things a bit more bearable. And then a simple decision to postpone going into the RAF and heading to university instead. Reading a book with a vegan character, doing a deep dive into documentaries. Becoming a full blown hippy.

So many decisions in life have lead me to this and over the last 28 years there have been a lot of them. I often wonder where I would be right now if I’d made different decisions at some of these key moments. 

I wasn’t born with a camera in my hand and I found climbing in my mid-twenties. There is such value in remembering that sometimes you have to bounce around and do a bit of everything before you find what you really love. Although I really should have known I was a climber, I used to climb out of my bedroom window and sit on my (steep) roof when I was mad at my mum.
You know when somebody ahead of you is breaking tr You know when somebody ahead of you is breaking trail and they’re SO DAMN tall that you’re practically leaping to try and follow in their footsteps? That’s me so much of the time. So when @kirstypallas charged ahead to break trail (“oh I could just do with a bit more of a workout”, she said) on this beautiful day in the Highlands I was so stoked, I could actually walk normally (well, as normal as you can knee deep in snow) for once when following somebody whilst they wade through fresh powder. 

Being around strong, capable outdoorsy women is a massive inspiration to me. Maybe it shouldn’t be, maybe it shouldn’t matter what gender a person is, but still - there is something different about spending time amongst other women in an outdoor space. And it’s something I hope to do a lot more in so many years to come 🌞 as there are a ton of brilliant women on my ‘climb mountains with’ list - @fritstartingat30 @wheelsandwords @frankie_dewar @emily_nicholl_ I’m looking at you, as a start.
“I never used to be a winter person, I always fo “I never used to be a winter person, I always found winter, I guess, to be a bit of a dead season and that I was always just waiting for it to be over. It was a season where I was blocked from progress, that nothing happened and my opinion on that has changed. I think one of the reasons I love the book wintering so much is because it explores winter but it also explores our relationship with progress and what we feel is progress. Winter is this necessary slowing down and this book  puts into perspective our workaholic culture which is obsessed with productivity.” - an excerpt from the latest #literaryadventure, reviewing and recommending the beautiful Wintering by Katherine May. 

The video is a bit different than planned because I’ve been isolating, but I’m glad I managed to get out and play in the snow before that happened. Enjoy ♥️ link is in my profile.
Being at home for a little under two weeks straigh Being at home for a little under two weeks straight has made me think about how much we want to do something when we realise we can’t, or shouldn’t. Like running, I’ve historically never liked running (or any exercise) after some bad experiences and body issues from my early childhood. I was always outdoorsy as a child but also embarrassed of exercising because I’d been made fun of in the past, and so I have feared it happening again.

So, never a runner. Untiiiiil a few years back when I used running as a way to stay busy and driven when I was houseless, unemployed, and a bit lost. I kind of liked it. Even though it was just city-bound pavement pounding and stopping at traffic lights all the time kind of running, it was a revelation. 

Then I got a job, I got somewhere of my own to live, and running took a backseat again. 

And then, bam, my ankle. Suddenly I couldn’t walk, but I now really missed running. I just wanted to go as far as I could and I promised myself I would never take my body for granted. A promise I often forget I’ve made, to be completely honest. 

The first lockdown brought running back into my life, but it also brought into sharp relief that long-term running will, for certain, do a lot of damage to my body. 

Now, running won’t ever be something I do a lot of, day after day - but spending time writing about running and editing photos from this beautiful trail run-walk-run in the Yorkshire Dales reminds me that it doesn’t need to be absolutes. It can be now and then, it can be on soft ground, and stopping to walk, and listening to the creaky scraping of bones and pain in the morning and going “okay so maybe not today”. 

Is it obvious that I’m quite excited to get outside again? Because I am. I really am ♥️
Feeling bad for feeling bad and feeling bad for fe Feeling bad for feeling bad and feeling bad for feeling good - the simplest phrase for how I feel at the moment. Which is ridiculous, but it makes sense when you think about it. Those of us with privilege, whether it’s beautiful hills locally, or job security, or a bouldering wall in your loft - feeling guilty for having them or upset that you don’t. I have one of those things above, and I feel so lucky I have it. 

Gratefulness has not been something I’ve practiced nearly enough over the last weeks, especially these last ten days being in (what started as accidental) isolation - so I’m hoping that I’ll be seeing the positive more over the next few weeks, rather than thinking about what I don’t have.
Photos vs. some of the conditions they were taken Photos vs. some of the conditions they were taken in 🌬 

“Can you meet us at the North Face car park at 5:30am?”. It’s the second shortest day of the year - not the easiest day for a photoshoot, but at least fewer daylight hours mean more of a lie in for a sunrise shoot.

Well, that’s what I thought. Turns out that the golden hour light never appeared in the end. Both at the start and at the end of the day.

 We headed up in blue hour - up, up and up into the mist. The wind got stronger, and as I tried to take a bite out of a vegan turkey sandwich, my lips frozen, it blew clean out of my mouth by a gust of icy wind. Red cabbage scattered across the snow. At exactly the same time this happened, @itsadamcampbell’s coffee blew clean out of his coffee cup lid. We looked at each other in disbelief and just started laughing a little maniacally. 

Well, Scotland has never been easy. 

Taken in December 2020 on assignment for @paramooutdoor.
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